The EU holds cultural and linguistic diversity in the highest regard

The European Parliament’s Intergroup for Traditional Minorities, National Communities and Languages held an extraordinary meeting on the 24th of November 2010 with the attendance of European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth Androulla Vassiliou.

In her speech Mrs. Vassiliou mentioned the slogan of Unity in diversity and emphasized that cultural and linguistic diversity are values worth cherishing since it is the guarantee of an open mind. She considers that multilingualism is a way out of the deep crisis in Europe because the continent is a huge labor market with English as a working language, but its knowledge of one common language is not enough. According to the 2002 Barcelona criteria, the citizens of the EU need to know two languages aside their mother tongue. The commissioner briefly presented the measures undertaken by the EC for the protection of the minority, regional and endangered languages.

The institution currently spends 50 million Euros every year on such projects. Here minority and regional language have the same chances as official languages. Mrs. Vassiliou also mentioned the activity of the organizations in the field supported by the EC and made reference to the early language learning projects and the community-based actions is support of literary translations. She also detalied the Youth on the Move program, that started this year.

DAHR’s MEP Csaba Sógor reminded that the recent recommendations of the Venice Commission clearly state the State Language Law in Slovakia not only discriminates against ethnic Hungarians living in Slovakia, but also infringes upon the international commitments of the Slovakian state. The MEP asked the commissioner if she personally, and the EC as a whole considers it important for member states of the EU to uphold their international commitments? He also asked if the EC had examined whether the State Language Law is in conformity with EU legislation. If so, questioned the Hungarian MEP from Transylvania, what are the conclusion of the examination? If not, when is the examination scheduled to take place?

 Commissioner Vassiliou stated in her response that language policy is under the authority of each member state, the EC does not have a say in the matter, but the Charter for Fundamental Rights prohibits any form of discrimination, Slovakia needs to take this into account and make the necessary modifications. The EC currently has an observers stand-point: if it can be proven that fundamental rights have been infringed due to the State Language Law, it will refer the matter to the European Court.

DAHR’s MEP Gyula Winkler welcomed the proposed cultural programs of the EC and especially the madam commissioner’s initiative to put the new idea on public debate. The MEP considers that the opinion of the EU citizens can bring new approaches politicians might not have considered. As such, he mentioned the usage of native languages and the issue of national minorities that are usually referred back to the member states by the EU institutions with reference to the EU base documents. The point of view of EU officials and institutions is in a rapid state of change and this dynamic enables us to dream about changing the framework agreements. We, MEPs coming from a minority background dream about formulating an European position on minority issues. I am aware that this is not a conformist political point of view, but I believe in it – said Gyula Winkler at the meeting of the Intergroup.

MEPs also requested the introduction of Catalan as an official language of the EU, the allowing of Occitan public inscriptions, concrete EU actions with regard to the negative effects of Slovakian State Language Law and the formulation of a central opinion on minority languages.
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